


I'm Tired of Lying ~ A RhettandLinKommunity Blog Post

by TinyFedoraMan



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: A Blog Made by Link, Blog, But More of a Listy Fic, F/M, Implied Rhink, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Link's Shitty Life In A Post, M/M, RhettandLinKommunity Post
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-13 13:49:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7978945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyFedoraMan/pseuds/TinyFedoraMan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written in the form of a blog post on the fan site, RhettandLinKommunity, Link talks about how his life is anything but perfect. He's tired of lying to the Mythical Beasts about his happiness on camera. This is his tell-all post.<br/>---<br/>Interactive Fanfic: If you leave comments with questions for Link, it'll be answered in the next chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Uploaded to the RhettandLinKommunity at 3:30 am

From a perspective of you, Mythical Beasts, you might think that I have a wonderful, cookie-cutter life. To you, I have a magnificent life with a magnificent family. You can’t see the sadness in my eyes or the scars on my body. All you see is the smile on my face as I share ten minutes with you every morning. 

Some super fans might think that they know everything about me. I mean, Rhett and I have told numerous stories throughout our Internetainment career. We’ve told stories that not even our close friends and family members know. Why do we tell you these stories? Why are we so open with you? We’re not. Rhett and I aren’t open with you, Mythical Beasts, and it’s about time that I tell you the truth, because you don’t know anything about me or my life. Because I, Link Neal, have been to Hell and back. 

But don’t blame yourself on not knowing that. Every day we bring you an average of twenty minutes of visual content. That’s about an hour and forty minutes every week that you spend with Rhett and I. However, not every day do we tell you stories about our lives. Usually we come to you with facts and statistics. So tell me again, why some super fans think they know everything about Rhett and I?

Well have no fear, because I think it’s finally time to be open with you all. We aren’t friends. We aren’t family. We are a community. However, I’m willing to let you into my life from now on. I’m tired of the lies. I’m tired of being known as the stupid and energetic one. I’m ready to be seen as me, Link. When you look at me after reading this, I want you to see me for who I truly am. 

My name is Charles Lincoln Neal the III, and I’m more than the glassesed half of a comedic duo.


	2. Continued

First, I’ll start you off at the beginning of it all. Enjoy my story telling. Rhett never does. 

Charles Lincoln Neal the III was born to Charles Lincoln Neal the II and Sue Neal. Charles and Sue had been married for only a few years. Charles was a tobacco farmer, and Sue was in training to be a nurse. The relationship between these two was never the greatest. They’d fight and argue almost every day. It probably wasn’t the smartest idea for the two to have a baby together- but they did… And this caused a shitty life for their child.

When Charles Lincoln Neal the III (aka Link) was two, his parents finally split up. Sue moved into a trailer behind her parents’ house, and Charles stayed in Dunn. 

A few years passed, and when Link was four, his mother married her high school sweetheart, Jimmy Capps. Link and his mother moved out of the trailer, and into a nice one story house in Buies Creek, North Carolina. Jimmy Capps had three kids: Jonathan, Jason, and Emmy. It was a bit awkward for the young boy to suddenly move in with three children and some weird man. Jimmy was a kind man who even built a fort in the backyard for Link and his soon-to-be best friend, Rhett James McLaughlin. Or at least everyone thought that Jimmy was a kind man.

When Link was five, he was a very timid child. He liked to keep to himself. His whole life, so far, he hadn’t had many friends, so he just assumed that that was normal. It wasn’t until the first day of first grade when he realized that maybe it wasn't normal to have zero friends and to be a silent child. Everyone around him chattered and chattered away. These children didn’t even know each other, yet they somehow had tons of things to talk about.

Pause. Time out. You all now about the story of Miss Locklear, right? If you don’t, we have an entire movie about it called Finding Miss Locklear. Go watch it and come back. Alright, continue.

Jimmy Capps. He was something, alright. A huge ass. (Excuse my language, young children. Wait. Children shouldn’t read this. Stop reading now if you’re a Mythical Beast under fifteen.) Jimmy Capps was the cause of all of Link Neal’s mental illnesses that come into play later on. He was abusive- both physically and mentally. He’d smack, spank, hit, whip, and kick Link. When he wasn’t physically abusing Link, he was mentally abusing him. Names like fag, cock-sucker, fugly, creepy, weakling, and more were always shouted or growled at Link. Sometimes the names were humorous, and other times they were disgusting. Of course, Jimmy wasn’t stupid. He knew only to do this when Sue wasn’t around. Sue’s most valuable treasure in her life was her son, Link. She always called him her “little angel”. Jimmy knew this. He also knew that Link wouldn’t say anything to Sue, because he would always be too afraid to upset his mother. Lincoln knew that his mother loved Jimmy. It was obvious. She was madly in love with him. Link would never hurt his mother for his own benefit… So he stayed quiet on the matter for eight more years when Sue finally divorced Jimmy. They didn’t divorce because Sue and Jimmy didn’t love each other anymore. They divorced because the abuse became so severe, that Link ended up in the emergency room with cuts, internal bleeding, severe bruising, and broken ribs. 

It was all Link’s fault, anyways. He shouldn’t have been so careless.  
It all happened because Link had his friend, Scott, over. Scott was obviously gay, but he was only thirteen, so adults just figured he was under developed. Link wasn’t an idiot. He could tell that Scott was into men, and this was perfect for Link. 

Ever since a young age, Link could tell that he definitely was attracted to male bodies, but he was also attracted to female bodies. He didn’t know that bisexuality existed. Keep in mind that this was in the south in 1990. All he knew was that there were normal people and fags. (Excuse my language. I’m just trying to get y’all to really experience my perspective.) He had to find out whether he was normal or a fag: so he befriended Scott Dilson. 

Scott and Link were sitting on Link’s bed, the door barely cracked open. They had been sitting on the bed playing Super Mario Bros on his dinky little tv. Link could tell that Scott kept looking at Link through the corner of his eye.He had no experience with flirting, but he knew that this wasn’t normal. Link pushed pause on the game and faced Scott. “Should we kiss?” This was probably the most bold thing he had ever done in his short thirteen years of life. Scott’s mouth turned up in a grin as he nodded his head… And thus they kissed… Right as Jimmy was sticking his head in through the crack of the door to check in on Link. As the two pulled apart from the kiss, Jimmy disappeared to the front door where he let Scott’s mom in. “Scott! Your mom’s here!” The boy slid off of the bed with the biggest grin ever. “See ya later, Link.” 

Scott scampered out, and Link wished and prayed to every God that would listen, that Scott stayed. In through the door came Jimmy with a belt. “Bend over, fag.” Link had to submit to his request. What else would he have done? He could’ve run away, but imagine how much that that would’ve hurt Sue. 

Link bent over, and then the beating started. Jimmy swung the belt so hard that it was leaving deep gashes. He was almost gushing blood. Link didn’t even know that it was possible to bleed from a black leather belt. After his back was completely drenched in blood, Jimmy yanked the boy down to the ground and started kicking him relentlessly. Kick after kick, it didn’t stop. Link felt each rib break (out of the four that broke). He was bleeding all over his floor, in complete sobs. Jimmy kept grunting and yelling out, “Be quiet you dumb ass fag! Your mother will come home and hear!” Well, she eventually did come home and hear… After Jimmy had relentlessly beaten Link to a pulp. He was a wreck. Link blacked out just as his mother came through the door and let out the most blood-curdling scream he had ever heard. Then he woke up in the hospital with Rhett at his side.

Jimmy was arrested, but miraculously released after trial. To this day, no one knows how he got released. 

 

 

(I’m dropping the storytelling in third person. That was awful!)  
After that, life only got worse. I started to develop traits of PTSD. That wasn’t the only thing that developed. I also developed depression, severe anxiety, panic attacks, anorexia, and suicidal thoughts. (I already had OCPD before this happened. I also already had anxiety, but it increased significantly.) Having a friend like Rhett never really helped my depression. All of you might think that he was the picture-perfect best friend. That accusation is incorrect. Rhett was a shitty friend. He bullied me in front of the cool guys and girls to earn brownie points. Now I know what you’re thinking: Why didn’t I drop him as a friend? I had no other friends. Rhett was my only true friend whom I could tell anything to. He may have been a shitty friend around others, but in private he was the perfect best friend. He truly cared about me. Besides my mother and grandmother (Nana), no one ever really cared about me. I’d be at my dad’s house, and he’d notice that I wasn’t eating… But did he ever ask about it? Nope. He figured I was just a weird moody teenager who wasn’t hungry. However, whenever Rhett realized I wasn’t eating, he’d sit me down and basically force things down my throat. (I know what dirty thought you’re thinking, and no. His dick down my throat doesn’t come into play until college. Calm down.) 

So although he was shitty to me when it came to ditching me for a quick shag with a girl, he wasn’t awful. I think his awfulness and wonderfulness balanced each other out, which is why we stayed friends through high school. Cause although he ignored me at lunch, he would give his all to make up for it after school. And I was fine with it. Laughing until we were both crying on the floor of his room was worth the world to me. But then again, most of my life and my thoughts were gray and gloomy. I was basically depressed at every moment in my life unless I was hanging out with Rhett.

Fast forward to sophomore year when I got addicted to cocaine for a few months. I also tried to commit suicide junior year of high school, and got thrown into a mental hospital for two months. That was fun. Note to self: You have to swallow the entire bottle of pills.

College was pretty anticlimactic, or at least freshmen year was. Rhett and I shared a small dorm at North Carolina State. I’ve talked about this before. We were both so obsessed with studying and keeping up our 4.0 GPA, that neither of us really had time to go out and mingle with the ladies. (I still didn’t know about bisexuality, but I knew for damn sure that I wouldn’t be gay in the south.) So… Sexual tension built up. We were both eighteen year old teenage boys. I was a closeted bisexual, and Rhett would basically fuck anything that moved. So naturally, we started doing sinful things to each other: Making out, touching, groping, grinding, blow jobs, and hand jobs. We never let it get far enough to sex. We still had standards. Neither of us were going to admit to being even ten percent gay. (Yeah. I know. Giving another man a blow job is like forty percent gay. But it’s fine.) We didn’t have full blown sex until the end of freshmen year when we were both drunk off of our asses. Yes I know. Not a great way to lose your virginity, but we all know Rhett’s virginity had been gone for at least four years. (Pretty sure Rhett admitted to me that he lost his virginity at thirteen with his sixteen year old neighbor. If this seems weird to you, Rhett looked seventeen at twelve… His penis and his hormones said the same thing.) So it was only my virginity that had been thrown out of the window of his childhood home. (His parents, James and Diane, had left us home alone while they went out shopping. Normal when you think your son and his best friend are straight. And we totally were…) 

Fast forward to the summer of freshmen year. That’s when I met my future wife, Christy. Now, what people don’t know is that her full name is Christian Marie White. Yup. Her parents are such typical religious southerners that they named their daughter Christian. Now you understand why she goes by Christy.

Anyways, we met at the Lillington roller rink. You all know that I’m a roller skater. I may have been shit at sports, but this bitch can roller skate. (It’s 3 am. My “family-friendly” vocab was left at the GMM desk.) (Oh yeah. It’s 3 am and I’m in my office writing this. Christy and the kids are visiting family in NC. Just thought I’d update you.) 

Christy was obviously in love with me, and I was obviously in love with her. I taught her how to roller skate that night. I know. I’m romantic. Then we went on dates every Friday and Saturday. We feared that the end of the summer would mean the end of our relationship, but then we found out that our colleges were minutes from each other. She attended Meredith College, an all girls’ school. (Her father wanted to be certain that she’d be a virgin until her wedding day. Whoops. We had sex on the fifth date. Sorry, Danny- father in law.) So we dated all sophomore year and junior year. The summer of our junior year, I proposed. Her parents weren’t happy about that… We stayed engaged through senior year, and got married right after graduation. (Not literally. It was a few weeks later.) 

We moved into a small little house. We were broke college students. The only reason why we could even afford a house was because I’m a money saver. It wasn’t even a great house. We hated it… And we hated each other sometimes. The first few years of marriage with Christy was toxic. We argued nearly every night. She thought I was a dumb ass (not wrong), and I thought she was a controlling bitch. One argument got so bad, that she took the landline phone and chucked it at my head. That was fun. Luckily she missed, and after it hit the wall and shattered, she broke down in tears and repeatedly apologized. We ended up going to marriage counseling, and it surprisingly helped. A lot. It helped us realize that we were indeed madly in love with each other, but we just had communication problems. We worked on that, and things clicked perfectly into place. For a few years, my life was a cookie-cutter life. My depression randomly disappeared. Christy and I moved into a nice two-story house with a basement. The yard was beautiful and big. It was even in the same neighborhood as my mom and her husband, Lewis (She got remarried literally two months after Christy and I got married.) Our lives were going swell, and we both agreed that we were in the right place financially and mentally to start a family. So we got pregnant (do people still say that?) and nine months later, Lillian Grace Neal was born. Now. let’s get something straight. A lot of you spell her name as Lilly, and you’re incorrect. It’s spelled Lily. Us Neals are conservative with out L’s. (This is an inside joke, considering our three kids have L names. No? Okay. But really- it’s spelled Lily.) We actually named her after Lillington, the city in North Carolina in which we lived. I originally wanted to name her Ninja, but Christy said no. I don’t see why. It’s just Nina with a j. 

We ended up adoring babies. Lily was a blessing to us. She was everything and more. I loved holding our baby girl in my arms. I knew she’d always be my little princess.

So since we loved babies so much, we had another. Charles Lincoln Neal the IV was born. Of course we named him that. He was our first boy, and it only seemed right to give him that name! The name Charles Lincoln Neal will live on forever. Anyways… We just call him Lincoln. Not Link. We can’t have two Links. That’s too confusing when it comes to calling people down for dinner.

Before we thought of having another kid, I knew I had to leave my job at IBM. Being an engineer just wasn’t working for me. It paid well! We definitely lived comfortable lives with the money that I brought in, but I just wasn’t happy. My job was boring, and I worked long hours. Some nights I’d come home and everyone would already be in bed. I already missed some of Lily growing up. I wasn’t going to miss any more. So, based on decisions Rhett and I made, we both quit and became full time Internetainers. We had already been making songs and videos well before this decision, but it wasn’t until 2006/2007 when we did it for a living. It was hard. Christy, who got her degree in teaching, had to go back to teaching high school math. She stopped when she gave birth to Lily, but she had to hire a babysitter for Lily and Lincoln and go back to work. (Sorry, honey.) Income finally picked up around 2008 after people saw the Facebook Song. People started to subscribe to our channel, as well as buying our album, Up To This Point. I wouldn’t say that we became famous, but we definitely gained recognition in the YouTube and Internet world. That’s also when we began to gain fans, aka Mythical Beasts. (Hi!) Our wives were shocked. Although they supported us, they figured we’d fail and have to return to the life of an engineer. In fact, everyone was shocked. We became celebrities around Lillington. 

After the crazy shock of sudden “fame” finally wore off, Christy and I decided it would be wonderful to have another child. So, we had Lando James Neal. (Yes. His middle name is the same as Rhett’s. Yes that was intentional.) Now, I don’t have favorites with my children, but Lando is very special in my heart. First off, we had many miscarriage scares while Christy was pregnant with him. She was always spotting, and the doctors couldn’t really figure out why. However, Lando made it through. (Yes Lando was named after the Star Wars character. There’s a whole livestream of a RhettandLinKast dedicated to that.) Another reason why he’s special to me is because he came out of the womb as a daddy’s boy. The other two always preferred their mother, but not Lando. 

Well, I’m going to leave this blog post here. If you have any questions or want to hear any specific stories, leave a comment and I’ll get back to you in the next session. We’re definitely not done in talking about my shitty ass life.


	3. Installment 2

Uploaded to the RhettandLinKommunity at 11:43 pm

Hello, Mythical Beasts! I’m back… With no questions to answer. Thanks for that. You truly care, don’t ya? 

I left you off at Lando’s birth, so it’s time to pick up the story from there. After Lando was born, Rhett and I were slightly Internet-famous. We had around 100,000 subscribers, which gave us all hope that maybe- just maybe- we had a chance at a paying career. At that moment in my life, all I really cared about was trying to make enough money for Christy to continue being a stay-at-home mom. It wasn’t because I’m the type of man who thinks that women belong in the kitchen, (I don’t believe that, but when I have to cook, there’s always smoke. Therefor Christy is the one in the kitchen BY CHOICE.), it’s because she wasn’t happy having to leave the kids with our parents or babysitters for eight plus hours of the day. I always told her that I’d be happy to let them come to work with me, but as two young parents, she didn’t necessarily trust me… Not for any specific reasons, other than I was a dumb-ass. I still am, but I was more absent-minded then. She thought I’d leave the kids in a locked car in the North Carolina heat, or leave them with knives. I’ve never been that stupid, but let’s just leave it there. She didn’t trust me alone with two small children, and that was that. It resulted in multiple arguments, and dumb things said to each other like:  
Christy: Mom was right. I should’ve never said yes!  
Me: Then why the Hell did you, anyways?  
Christy: Right now I can’t even think of one reason!  
Me: Guess you should’ve married Garret then, huh? (She cheated on me with a guy named Garret sophomore year of college.)  
Christy: I can’t fucking believe you right now, Charles! Six years! It’s been six years since then! Why can’t you let it go?  
Me: Maybe because you were the love of my life, and it hurt me immensely. But you know… I’m the bad guy here, because I mentioned that you were fucking other men while I was planning what I’d get you for our one year anniversary!   
Christy: It was two guys! You make it seem like I was a whore!  
Link: Not a whore. A cheating skank.   
Christy: Oh fuck you, Neal! We all know to this day you still suck Rhett’s dick, and I let you! If I’m the cheating skank here, you’re the Hell-Bound Fag!

Yeah… That was an actual argument that stuck with me for a long time. She ended up taking the kids and staying with her parents for a week, despite my efforts to make things better. I’d stand outside in the winter’s cold for hours, begging her to open the door and talk to me. I sent flowers and gifts. Still nothing. Why did we stay together, you may ask? We loved each other. Through the arguments and the fights, there was always love that stayed burning- like that pile of ash that stays lit for hours after a fire has burnt out. It always stayed lit, and always sparked up a flame again. We loved each other, and I still love her to this day. She’s so beautiful and so sweet. She’s the best mother my children could ever have, and the best wife, too. And I know she still loves me, because just the other night she rolled over in bed to face me and whispered, “I’d still say yes.” And that’s all that needed to be said for me to wrap my arms around her and hold her to my chest as we slept. (I’d usually do this, but Christy is hot-natured and can’t sleep with more than a sheet on. Imagine one sweaty body against another for eight hours.) 

Anyways.... 2009 was the year of success for Rhett and I. We picked up on subscribers insanely quick. It really boosted up our spirits after our documentary, Looking for Ms Locklear (2008), barely made any sales. 2008 was the year of sponsors from companies, and although it felt and seemed like it was big then: it really wasn’t. Just look at YouTube channels now. People with barely 10,000 or 100,000 subscribers are being sponsored by apps or new companies. Of course, times have changed, and that’s because apps and media know that YouTube appeals to almost anyone with an internet connection. So a YouTuber with 10,000 subscribers may not seem like such a spokesperson to a YouTuber like me, with 11,000,000 + subscribers, but to a company, that’s 10,000 people who could buy their product.

I’m sorry. I keep getting off track, but that’s how it is to actually talk to me. Rhett hates it.

After 2009, we were still surprised that we were gaining subscribers and income. Christy got to quit her job, and things became happy again. 2010, however, was an even better year for our business. IFC, an American cable and satellite television network, had seen our series on our main channel “I Love Local Commercials” presented by Microbilt. They wanted to take the series, and move it to their cable network. Rhett and I went crazy. You know you’ve made it as an entertainer when you’re offered a television show. There was only one set back, however. In order for us to film, either Rhett and I would have to move out to Los Angeles, California together for the six months of writing and filming, and fly back between seasons to visit our families. Or we’d have to move our families West. So, we went with option B. Usually when a network assigns you a show and forces you to move out to the city of where their headquarters is at, they at least rent out a house for you. Not IFC. They forced us to move to location, yet we had to buy our own houses. Housing in California is anything but cheap. Especially Los Angeles. It’s the city of dreams. Everyone goes to Los Angeles to try their luck at making it big, which means it’s crawling with people. When I first got to Los Angeles, I couldn’t understand why it was such a “hot” place to be. It smelt. There was litter and graffiti everywhere. Every single place we went, it was crawling with people. And it just felt foreign to me. When I got there, I didn’t get out of the moving truck (Rhett and I drove across the country in a moving truck and met Mythical Beasts at rest stops along the way. There’s an entire series on that.) and think, “This is it. I can feel the fame already.” I got out of that truck and thought, “Is that really a needle next to a used condom in the gutter…?” And, “Why is that gray van selling tacos out of the back in the middle of an AT&T parking lot?” 

The first thing I did when I got there was move into our new house. Despite not knowing whether our show would last or not, Christy and I decided that we’d buy a house in Los Angeles. It was a big investment, but as you know, I’m a money saver. Rhett isn’t, and that’s why his first housing in California was actually in an apartment building a few blocks down from my neighborhood. Though he didn’t necessarily like it, it did the job.

We spent the next few months planning and filming our show. A lot of the episodes took place in California, but we still had to go out of town for a few weeks to film two or three episodes. The show hit the air in 2011, and… We didn’t get as many views as we would have liked. However, it did give us the opportunity to be on the Lopez Tonight Show and the Conan Show, as well as be mentioned in a few magazine articles and online articles. However, the show was never renewed for a second season, and Rhett and I felt at our complete lowest. Never had I felt like such a failure. We moved our families out to California -I even bought a new house- and our show was already cancelled. Now we had to move back to North Carolina and admit to our family and friends that they were right. Two country hics from a small town in North Carolina would never make it in Los Angeles. I was already planning the announcement to my family for when we’d return when Christy pulled me aside to talk. (We were at the dinner table with Rhett and Jessie.)

Christy: Link, can we talk about somethin’ real quick?  
Me: Of course, honey.

We went into our bedroom to speak.

Christy: I don’t want to go back.  
Me: To the table? Why not? Did Rhett say something?  
Christy: No no… Not that. Home to North Carolina. I don’t want to go Link. You and Rhett keep talking about what we’re gonna do when we get back, but I don’t want to leave.

I remember being very astounded by that, Southern Christian White Neal didn’t want to return to her parents and her friends? Amazing.

Me: What? You don’t?  
Christy: Of course not, Link. I love it here. I love our house. It may not be as big as the one back home, but it’s gorgeous. And I love the weather. I hate the winter. And I love the food. Everything is so light and nutritious. Don’t get me wrong. I love fried chicken and cornbread, but I love being able to nourish our children way better. Plus I love the people. Everyone is so open-minded and accepting. It’s just beautiful. This is where I want to raise our children.  
Me: Really? Have you seen what I’ve seen? Yesterday I saw a prostitute giving a junkie a blow job behind the dumpster of In-N-Out…  
Chrsity: Lincoln. I don’t mean things like that. I mean the community of support here. There I was brain-washed into thinking gays are bad and sex is bad and missing church is basically the equivalent to worshiping Satan. Here they have a church for people who are convinced that church is irrelevant. Being healthy is good. Activity is good. Expressing yourself is necessary. I don’t want our kids to be raised like we were. They need to know that being different is good, and homosexuality isn’t a sin.   
Me: Then it’s settled. We’re staying.

And that was it. Christy and I decided to stay, which instantly caused Rhett and Jessie to stay and look for a house. They ended up living a couple roads down from us, across from a park. Since we needed to make money again, we started to fire back up Good Morning Chia Lincoln on our second channel, but called it Good Mythical Morning. Again, income was steady. Our wives became full-time home-school teachers, because our kids didn’t feel comfortable starting school with the LA kids, especially as southern children with goofy accents and far-too innocent minds. We weren’t going to force them. 

During that span of time, our subscribers began to rise again, as well as the views and income. Rhett and I moved out of the backyard studio and into our first Burbank studio investment. It was just a house with a large basement and a few randomly large and open rooms that we fit our sets in. Our kids became part-time public school kids, and part-time home schooled kids, and still are to this day. Just like last time. I’m going to leave this post here. 

If you have any questions, please leave a comment. I’ll answer it in my next installment. Want to hear something specific? Leave a comment and I’ll mention it. Last time I received zero questions. Are you even reading my post? I know the Kommunity doesn’t get much traffic lately, but really? XOXO -Link


	4. Just Catching Up

Updated to the RhettandLinKommunity at 9:26 am

Questions:  
Hey Link, I was wondering what your favorite thing growing up was?

Yikes. When I was a young child, my favorite thing ever was my rock tumbler. All I did was put random rocks into the machine and produce smooth rocks. It was great. I secretly made jewelry out of it for my mom, but I never admitted it to anyone else. Pretty sure she hated it. I’m not a great jewelry maker…

 

Q: I wanna know more about your relationship with Rhett, your dynamic, why you’re still friends? Are you in love with each other? 

 

The relationship between Rhett and I is purely something unique. Explaining it to others has always been a bit difficult to me, but then again, I rarely explain it to others. I’ve explained our relationship to our wives and our Mythical Crew. That’s about it. In a few words, I’d say that our relationship is that of two incest-y brothers whom are also an old married couple. I know. I know. That sounds awful, but it’s true. Throughout our entire friendship, we’ve been like brothers… But we also make-out… And have sex… It’s fine, right? Probably not. See, though? It’s really hard to explain. Every day Rhett and I get in at least twelve arguments, and I’m not even exaggerating. Every day we have twelve things to argue over! It’s never even actual problems. Just this morning, Rhett and I started yelling at each other, because he wanted to wear the same shirt that I wanted to wear when we went to film an episode. Literally the most pointless arguments happen daily. Last night we were going to be home late, so I had Rhett go out and pick us up something to eat. What does he do? He gets himself the most unhealthy burger and fries AND frozen yogurt, but I got a salad and water. Not that I’m complaining about my meal. It was good. It’s his meal that bothered me. He eats so freaking unhealthy, and it needs to change. Both Jessie and I yell at him time and time again, yet he doesn’t change anything about it. I just worry that he’ll have a heart attack one day. He’s a large man. He’s more prone to heart attacks.   
While writing the previous sentence, he literally came in and started screaming about how I left the empty toilet paper roll on the cabinet and didn’t change it. See? Old married couple. It’s frustrating. 

I wouldn’t be able to tell you why Rhett and I are still friends to this day. Through all of the “I hate you”’s, and the “Maybe we’d be better off not talking”’s, we are somehow still friends. Yeah… We had a lot of fall outs in our teen years. Mostly because I was a suicidal, drug-addicted, little bitch, and he was absolutely obsessed with woman of every kind. We just had a lot of periods of time where we wouldn’t talk at all. I remember laying in the mental hospital missing Rhett with every muscle in my body, but he didn’t care. He had his girlfriends and his guy friends. I was just his fucked up friend in a mental hospital. He only visited me twice in those months. It was horrible. 

I wouldn’t be able to tell you why Rhett and I are still friends, because he bullied me a lot in our youth. I don’t know how I got through those days with him as my best friend, but the only reason as to of why that I can think of is purely because I had no one but him. I was an anxious child. I didn’t know how to make friends. I didn’t know how to become popular. But Rhett did and he guided me under his wing. I had friends and popularity because of him. At home I had no one. At my dad’s house I had no one. All I had was Rhett, and that’s why we stayed friends. 

I'd also like to add, that perhaps we are still friends, because Rhett protects me. All of my life, Rhett has always been willing to throw a punch at anything and anyone who ever dared to hurt me. No one else has ever done that for me.

In college he used to bully me less. We hung out a lot, and that’s when he realized his feelings for me were more than the teenage hormones. Since we had no roommate freshman year of college, we spent most of that time having sex and sleeping together. It was actually… Really nice… It was wonderful to be able to fall asleep in his arms every night, knowing that he actually liked me. He wanted me against his body. He wanted to hold me and protect me. Every night he’d whisper something cute in my ear, and I’d fall asleep with a huge smile- every single night. As we acquired a roommate, Greg, things started to change. “No homo” Rhett started to return to me, and we continued to just be best friends. Our sex lives slowly declined, but came to a screeching halt as soon as Rhett left to Slovakia. When he came back, I had already been dating Christy for months, therefore, our gay days were over for good… Or at least that’s what we thought. Our relationship started back up the night before I got married. I was drunk, depressed, and anxious. All I can remember from that night is Rhett pinning me against the mattress.

Are Rhett and I in love? I guess so, yeah. I guess the fluttering of my heart, dropping of my stomach, and the lightness in my head when he makes that stupid grin when he’s right- or the feeling of instant safeness when he places his hand on my back- acts as the reasoning as to of why we would be in love. Yeah I love him, but finally admitting to people that we’re in love isn’t something that I’m comfortable with yet. 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I left our last pow-wow at a good moment in my life: our first Burbank studio. Things were actually going our way for once in our lives. Although Commercial Kings was long gone and dead, we had a bunch of new and exciting things to come. First we’d need some people to help us out with making our dreams a reality. Running a small business on your own is already extremely hard, but running a business that was exponentially growing was extremely hard to do with just me, Rhett, and Jason. Back then Good Mythical Morning was barely edited, which was very nice and convenient to us, but we also were working in a small closed environment. Three men in a garage for eight to fourteen hours a day wasn’t necessarily the ideal office… So that’s why, as ideas expanded as well as our bank accounts, we decided to get the new office and hire a staff. Hez was our intern. He was pretty cool. Ben was an editor, and continues to work on and off for us to this day. Kendall was one of our social media monitors. Stevie, who we all know and love, did anything and everything ever since the beginning. She still does. And yeah. That was basically our first set of Crew members. A few months later we hired Jen, who you should all know and love. That was it. We had a small crew, but it worked well for us. The next few years went pretty good. Nothing big really happened, actually… Then we got a lot more Mythical Beasts, got a bigger office, and a lot more crew members. I’m sorry this update is pretty boring, but I’ll leave it here. Next time I plan on touching more on my depression and anxiety, because it’s been affecting me a lot more these past few months. I also really want to talk about my relationship with my parents. However, for now I’d like to ask y’all some questions, if that’s alright. How are you enjoying the Buddy System soundtrack so far? Are you excited for our show? I’m stoked. I think it’s brilliant and amazing, and that you’re all going to fall in love with it. 

Until next time.  
Stay Mythical.   
Link Neal signing off. Peace.


	5. Bet You Didn't Think That My Life Could Get Shittier

Uploaded to the RhettandLinKommunity at 6:24 pm

Hey hey hey! Buddy System season 2 is almost out now! Isn’t that exciting? I’m loving all of the feedback that we’re getting over the Behind the Scenes. I took my kids to see Doctor Strange a few months back and guess what happened! The trailer for Buddy System played! I almost shat my pants, if I’m being honest. Apparently it’s not just in LA where this is happening. A Mythical Beast from Indiana tweeted us saying that our trailer played before her movie, too! Isn’t that awesome?! I honestly can’t believe it that Rhett and I have made it this far already… It seems like just yesterday we were sitting in our Lillington office, debating whether we should give up internetainment or not. I'm thankful that we didn't. Plus we've been on Jimmy Fallon three damn times! It’s nice to actually be happy for once after the last few months of constant depression. Warning: This is going to be a heavy chapter. 

So… When I say that I’ve fallen into a constant depression for a few months, I basically mean a few years. It all started when IFC cancelled our show, Commercial Kings after one season. They didn’t even straight up tell us. We just assumed that after months of not hearing back from them that our show was cut… And we were correct. They never told us why it was cancelled, and I sort of don’t want to know why… But once our show was cancelled, I wanted to end my life, and that isn’t an exaggeration. I legitimately wanted to die. Right when Rhett and I thought we had finally made it to the big shots, it was taken from us, and we were left in the dust of Los Angeles. No family. No friends. Just our two families and a video camera. Normal people would take this as a, “Huh. That didn’t work. Let’s pick ourselves up and start from scratch.” Not me. My answer was, “I’m going to stop eating, hoping that I’ll die from malnutrition so my family can live off of my life insurance!” I’m so smart, guys. Sooo… My bulimia returned. Have I even mentioned my bulimia yet? I’m bulimic by the way. I’d try to go without putting anything in my body, but that was a bit hard to get away with around my wife and Rhett. So, I’d eat, then promptly get rid of it in the toilet. This went on for a few weeks. Apparently I had enough in me to keep living for a long time before my body noticed that it wasn’t getting any nutrients. Therefore, one afternoon, I collapsed while Christy, the kids, and I were at the beach. I was taken to the hospital and treated for a few days before I was able to go home. However, I had to go to therapy for quite a long time. I still go, but definitely not as much. The bulimia still went on for a while, and sometimes I still find myself vomiting everything up after large meals. But I’m a lot better now, and Christy and Rhett do make sure that I eat. I’ve actually seen Rhett’s texts, and every morning Christy tells him if I’ve eaten or not, and Rhett does the same for if I’ve eaten lunch or not. 

I’ve actually been bulimic since high school, but anorexic since middle school. It basically happened because I had a lot of baby fat and went through puberty hella late.

So if you guys have ever seen pictures of me as a kid, you can tell that I had a chubby face. I was always extremely self conscious over the fact that I was physically fit, but my face was so fat! It didn’t help that Rhett- as fell as many other kids- were fine. They were skinny with almost no baby fat! I’d pull on a nice outfit, and feel so confident. But as soon as I looked in the mirror, I’d instantly feel so bad about myself. It was like I just had two big balloons on my cheeks.

Once middle school came, it made me feel even worse about myself. So as you guys know, I played baseball for a few years. Plus, unlike your generations, we had to actually go outside to have fun. So, I was obviously in shape. But I still had that damn baby fat. But as everyone around me began to go through puberty right before and during sixth grade, it really just hit me harder. My friends’ voices had dropped. Their balls had dropped. They were getting ripped. Flooded with girls… And I was left with a high voice, the body of a child, and a fat face. Not really knowing it was just baby fat, I began to starve myself. It had gotten so bad, that I would go about four days without eating a thing. Since my mom was still with Jimmy during this point in time, her focus was more on him and his kids than it was on me. She wouldn’t realize that I wasn’t eating. While at my dad’s, he didn’t pay enough attention to me to notice my lack of eating, either. During lunch at school, I’d just say that I had a big breakfast. No one really noticed. Finally, about halfway through seventh grade, I finally went through puberty. The baby fat fell off of me faster than I could process it. But instead of assuming that it was puberty that caused it, I thought it was the anorexia finally working. (It wasn’t.) I continued to live my life as I had been living it. Not eating. I think I ate one meal every third day. How was I alive off of that? I barely was. I was a walking skeleton. This was still seventh grade, as well. So this was the year that Jimmy was caught abusing me. My mom assumed that my hair loss, pale skin, and boney body was due to Jimmy, so she didn't really look into it. However, once Jimmy was gone, my mom had to work two jobs while we lived with my grandparents. We were never rich. Always poor. But with the lack of Jimmy’s income, and having no house, I lived in my Nana’s spare bedroom, while my mom lived in their camper. She didn’t live inside with us, because she didn’t believe in mooching off of her parents. This was also around the time when I began to explore bulimia. I didn’t really know what it was at the time. I just had discovered it on my own. I knew getting away with starving myself wouldn’t fly with my Nana and Papa. They were more of the sit down at the table, have a big meal, and predinner prayer kind of family. With my mom and Jimmy, it was more of “here’s dinner. Eat it whenever” kind of scenario. That was mainly due to the fact that everyone had different schedules.

So with my Nana and Papa, I would eat the meal, excuse myself to the bathroom afterwards, and throw it back up. I know bulimia can cause weight gain. It actually never did that to me, mainly because my body has already been through Hell and back. But if you’ve read Shane Dawson’s books, you’d know.

It wasn’t until health class in high school when I found out that bulimia was a thing, and that I was doing it. It was my filthy little secret that only I knew about. By then, my mom and I lived in a small house in Buies Creek. She still wasn’t home much, so I really didn’t need to be bulimic. But I still was. In health class, I had also learned what binging and purging was. And it became my new best friend. I would get home from school, let my teenage hormones raid the kitchen cabinets, then I’d be in the bathroom vomiting everything back up. It was a really low point in my life, but honestly, there’s a lot of those. 

It pretty much went on unnoticed, which is sad to say. I had been anorexic for so many years, that me looking pale and sickly was honestly a normal thing to people. My mom didn’t see me enough to really notice. The only people who had really noticed were the McLaughlins. Mama Di and James saw me all the time whenever I hung out with Rhett. Needless to say, they had seen me at least shirtless as well. It worried Mama Di immensely, and she did try to make me eat more. But forcing a sixteen year old to eat isn’t the easiest. They aren’t five. You can’t just threaten to take away toys.

Around this time, when I was fifteen/sixteen, I also began to dabble in drugs. When you’re depressed, sometimes you’d do anything to feel better. Cocaine did. Alright. Let’s back it up a bit.

How did I get into drugs, anyways?  
It happened when I met Brendon. He was the sexiest man I had ever seen. Perfect black hair. Brown eyes like a puppy. A killer smile. And a perfect body. What surprised me the most was the fact that he was interested in me as well. We met at the Rocky Horror Picture Show in Lillington. It was a secret little spot at an old theater. It was truly a hidden gem. I found it on a night when my dad asked me to babysit my half brothers and sisters. Of course, I got them some dinner and took the fuck off into town. I ran into a crowd of oddly dressed people who were headed to Rocky. So I followed.

I stayed after the show to meet the cast in it. One man, who played Brad, gladly talked to me. The conversation began about Rocky, but it ended in him asking me to come back to his apartment. 

So at this time, I was really exploring my sexuality. I know I mentioned earlier that I was a virgin until I was eighteen… Yeah. I lied. Why? I was afraid my mom would read these posts and end up KILLING me. But she doesn’t. Anyways, I had had sex with a few girls from my school… But I had never had sex with any guys, despite having wanted to for quite a while. I knew I was interested in men and women, but I never dared to tell anyone.

That night with Brendon was an amazing night. That was also the night when I tried cocaine. There were a lot of firsts that night.

But anyways, it became a habit. Every Saturday, I’d go to Rocky, be fucked by Brendon, then we’d lay there and shoot up. I wasn’t proud of my actions, but it kept me from killing myself. 

It did go on from when I was about sixteen until I was almost eighteen. The addiction became worse. I’d go to school high as a kite, and then shoot up in the bathroom between classes. I was just always so depressed. It was the only thing that kept me somewhat sane. I’d go home to Brendon, who tended to sneak in through my window. We’d have sex before my mom came home. He’d give me more coke. And the cycle went on and on until I broke.

It was almost the end of Junior year. Rhett had found out about the drugs and had dropped me as a friend completely. He wouldn’t even acknowledge my existence. I lost all of my friends. I could barely keep my grades at A’s. I was cheating on my tests. After school consisted of me crying into Brendon’s chest, injecting myself with drugs, and wanting to die. Finally one day, when Brendon didn’t show up, a part of me broke. I was on the floor, a needle in one arm and a blade at the other. I know it’s hard to imagine me cutting, since blood makes me faint, but I could stand it when I was high enough. I cut and I cut. I injected a lethal dose into my veins. And i began swallowing pain relievers and sleeping pills like no other. 

The doctors still don’t know how I survived it. And I still can’t stop beating myself up over how much I hurt my mom over it. She’s the one that came home and basically found her son dead.

After getting treated, I was shipped off to a mental hospital and rehab center in Raleigh. I spent the last two months of Junior year there, as well as all of the summer. Rhett finally came to visit me towards the end, where he then forgave me for doing the drugs, and I forgave him for pushing me away during such a hard time in my life.

And although I’m a lot better now, in times of severe depression, I do think of how easy it would be to get cocaine in Los Angeles. Or how easy it is to kill myself. But then I have the support of all of you Mythical Beasts, and it changes my mind a bit. I love you all. If I could make it through all of this shit, I know you can. Stay Strong.  
And Stay Mythical.  
Be Your Mythical Best.


End file.
